So the dust has settled: Tony McNulty is out and Bob Blackman is in. Gareth Thomas fought off Rachel Joyce and despite Cleggmania there were no significant gains for the Lib Dems.

The web is buzzing with views on the result of the 2010 election in Harrow, so here is Stanmore Politics with the most interesting theories:

All down to Boris: When London went blue to years ago it certainly boosted the Conservatives. And as the mayor himself told Evening Standard journalist Paul Waugh: “I would say it’s Boris wot won it in areas such as Harrow East.”

Elsewhere, blogger Boris Watch disagrees, noting that where there were high profile Labour losses – in Harrow East or in Brentford and Isleworth for Ann Keen – it was more about constituency record and expenses.

“So where does this leave Boris? Well, when elected he was supposed to use his charisma to deliver London to Cameron, which would have won him the Premiership.

“Instead Boris has been decidedly low-profile […] where Labour seats were lost there appear to have been extraneous factors like an undefendably low majority or expenses scandals rather than a Boris Halo

Paying the price? The majority of commentators have argued that McNulty’s loss – and conversely Gareth Thomas’ win – comes down to expenses.

The Telegraph raged ‘disgraced MPs are driven out by angry voters’ while the Scotsman noted ‘the expenses scandal claimed another victim’ and the Daily Mail waved ‘Cheerio to those cheats’.

One commenter on the blog ThisisBigBrother wrote: “This bunch of sleaze merchants refused to resign but justice has now been done!”

Tory trouble? Lest we forget, both Harrow East and West were Conservative before 1997, but while new Labour has been well and truly decimated Gareth Thomas held on with a respectable majority. Helped by some boundary changes, why did his opponent Rachel Joyce – a very credible candidate – not boot him out too?

The Telegraph’s London Editor Andrew Gilligan writes that ‘it was also due to a patchy performance by the Tories’ and comments:

“First, candidates clearly mattered in this election. And unlike Boris in 2008, Cameron has not broken through to the working class, in the capital at least.”

The Times notes that this was ‘a terrible night for science’, something that had Dr Joyce been elected, would have been slightly less the case.

Lib Dem loss? Days ago, the Lib Dems under Nick ‘British Obama’ Clegg were tipped by all the pundits and polls to come second in the popular vote, and certainly improve their share of seats. In Harrow, not much changed.

Neil Midgley, the Telegraph’s assistant media editor said: “If you look at the opinion polls at the start of the campaign, and the final results, they are very similar.

“In other words: all that TV hoopla had pretty much no impact on the overall final result at all.

“Of course, individual voters may have switched to and fro based on what they saw on the TV. But the individual constituency results that are striking tend to be so (Jacqui Smith, Tony McNulty) because of the MPs’ expenses scandal”

Green candidate Rowan Langley notes happily: “in Harrow our own supporters turned out to take that leap of faith on the Green candidates, on the ballot paper for the first time, 625 in Harrow West and 793 Harrow East.”

What did Twitter think? One of the sad parts about the defeats of McNulty and Joyce is that Harrow now has even less political representation on twitter. But that didn’t stop the local Twitterati from having their say:

@bigpantywoman: “Wish lab had put up new people in [sic] Smith and Tony McNulty’s seats, must have known wd lose”

@MarcusDysch_JC: “The electorate knows what it is doing. Had given the likes of Tony McNulty and Jacqui Smith a kick in balls where they deserved one. Good.”

@alextingle “I agreed most with Christopher Noyce (Liberal Democrats) in Harrow West – how about you?”

@reporterboy “Tony McNulty was cheerful and polite throughout the night, and still so despite the clear dejection of defeat. Respect for that from me.”

@mattgodbolt “Yay! Tony McNulty is no longer my MP. Conservatives got in, not my choice but not a total disaster”

There was a mixed reaction for Tony Blair in Harrow this morning as he joined the Labour election campaign.

According to one onlooker the former Prime Minister was greeted by a ‘small crowd of unhappy people’ when he visited a health clinic in Rayners Lane.

He was there to campaign alongside incumbent Harrow West MP Gareth Thomas.

However asked having his blood pressure taken at the Alexandra Avenue Surgery, Blair appeared relaxed and chatty – and rather suntanned after being stuck in Israel due to the Ash cloud.

Asked whether he was healthier than Gordon Brown, he quipped: “It’s a tough job being prime minister – I know.”

Even the revelation that the clinic doctor was ‘a Tory man’ didn’t faze him.

‘Whoops,” he joked. “I’m trying to work out how to handle that one, I’m not sure I
can.”

He was optimistic about Labour’s chances, despite another day of poor polling for the party. “I don’t think [Brown] has failed at all,” he said.

“I think that Labour has got every chance of succeeding.”

He said it was strange looking at the campaign from the outside, adding:

“When you start in an election campaign, particularly when you have got a new thing, which is the debates, then it will all revolve around a bit of who’s up, who’s down and all the rest of it.

“But once you get into the final days, I think people will really focus their minds on who has the best answers for the future, who has got the energy, the drive to take the country forward, who has got the answers to the questions the future is posing.”

Blair praised Thomas for his work as an MP, saying he had done a fantastic job.

Three campaigners for Rachel Joyce, the Conservative candidate for the constituency, met Blair as he left the clinic.

Not necessarily. Boundary changes mean the Greenhill and Marlborough wards and one part of Harrow-on-the-Hill are now in Harrow West. Meanwhile former Harrow West wards of Hatch End, Pinner, and Pinner South are now under the new constituency of Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. Check with Harrow Council to be sure.

Does my vote matter in Harrow?

If you go by the 2005 results, no – both Tony McNulty and Gareth Thomas clinched a third term. Thomas has a nominal majority of 2,028 and McNulty of 4,730.

But don’t let the numbers fool you. Both were safe Tory seats until 1997, and the last few years have not been easy, especially with the legacy of expenses hanging over Harrow East.

Thomas faces a particularly powerful challenge from Joyce, a doctor who has been making her mark in the area for some time.

While Blackman is himself a controversial figure, on his fourth attempt to enter parliament, 2005 saw the constituency swing a significant 6.9 per cent towards the Conservatives.

You can see just how powerful your vote is here, but essentially, the result is difficult to predict. Which means all the more reason to get out and vote on Thursday.

Where is my nearest polling station?

To find out, type your postcode into Harrow council’s helpful device or look at the map on the official polling Election Poll Card you should have received in the post.

What if I haven’t got a polling card?

It may still be delivered, but don’t panic. As long as you are on the electoral register you can still vote.

When will the result be announced?

Both Harrow seats are set to count their votes on the night, but as for the national result, the numbers may not give us much of an outcome. Pollsters are predicting a hung parliament (read a good guide to that here). But as soon as the results are in, Stanmore Politics will be on hand to tell you the score.

Is your vote worth more than your neighbours? Quite possibly, depending on where in Harrow you live.

Worth the trip? Photo: Andrew Dunn

They may be only minutes away from each other, but research shows a vote this May in Harrow East is worth 0.323 votes more than across the boundary in Harrow West.

According to the website Voter Power, voters in Harrow East have the equivalent of 0.468 votes each. If that sounds low, in Harrow West each vote is worth the equivalent of just 0.145 votes.

This is despite the fact that the Harrow West constituency is smaller than the UK average, so theoretically voting there should be more important, while Harrow East is actually 1.58 per cent larger than the average.

Across the UK, the average voter has 1.75 times more voting power than voters in Harrow West, but Harrow East’s electorate is more powerful than much of the country, with votes worth 1.85 more than the national average.

According to the site, Harrow East voters are the 125th most powerful out of all the 650 UK constituencies.

Both constituencies switched from Conservative to Labour in 1997, but while the site ranks Harrow West (and incumbent Labour MP Gareth Thomas) as ‘Very Safe’, Harrow East and MP Tony McNulty only get a ‘Fairly Safe’ rating.

The statisticians at the site (whose research comes from think tank the new economics foundation) also show that 51.37 per cent of votes in Harrow West in 2005 didn’t count in that they were not cast for the winning candidate.

However across the boundary in Harrow East, nearly 55 per cent of votes counted for nothing in the last election.

Still, it could be worse. In what may be the safest seat in the UK, voters have the equivalent of 0.0004 votes each. Spare a moment for the residents of the ‘Ultra Safe’ constituency of Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford.

Harrow got a mention on Dave Hill’s Guardian blog today. Postulating about ‘bluewash Harrow’, Hill made predictions about the Conservative chances in both east and west of the borough.

For Tony McNulty, over in Harrow East, Hill wasn’t too positive, noting the seat would be more of a Tory target. He wrote:

“Not only is the former henchman of gruesome, tabloid-pleaser Home Secretary John Reid defending a small majority, he also has the legacy of his expenses mess working against him. And what a mess it was…

“… [Bob Blackman has] had his own local difficulties but you’ve got to fancy his chances anyway.”

He was more optimistic about Gareth Thomas in Harrow West. Describing Thomas as ‘depressingly obedient’, Hill said this seat looked more secure, but added:

“NHS doctor Rachel Joyce has been blogging and slimming at the same time which, given that my weight has recently soared to an unimpressive life-time record of 12 stone five pounds, impresses me as the mark of a formidable individual.

“Sometimes I think the Tories deserve their turn in power.”

Joyce herself was pretty pleased to get a mention in the post. Writing on her blog that Hill was spot on about her Labour opponent, she said:

“He is so uber-loyal that it is frustrating

“…Just once in a while he should show the Labour party a bit of gumption and say “no – I don’t agree with that”.

The dieting doctor was most keen to set the record straight over being a member of the Blue Rinse brigade.

“I am still of child-bearing age (so I can’t be that old) and I used to be a LibDem. Perhaps I’m a tinge of turquoise…”